Hero Wars

resources

Issaries Inc's new Gloranthan roleplaying game Hero Wars is very interesting
indeed. I
think it might be the system I've been looking for since the early
Nineties.
Now just to get some players together and try it out for real...

Here are some things I've been working on which I think other people
might
find useful:

Runes

The Gloranthan Core Runes are currently not available as a True Type
font from the Issaries
Inc site, but a new and improved font is coming soon. Given the image
quality of
the last one this should be very good indeed, far better than anything
I could
produce.

New!!

I have also produced three fonts showing the Runes of the various
gods and
goddesses in the Storm Pantheon. Note that again official Issaries
fionts are on
their way (at which point this will be removed from the web) but I'm
hoping that
it's OK to leave these in place as a stop-gap resource until then.

Here are two more fonts I've built using the runes shown in the Hero
Wars
rule book and the Glorantha book. They're rather more primitive than
the fonts
above, but they have some non Orlanthi runes which might be of use.:

The runes themselves are copyright Issaries Inc, and I expect
official fonts
(which will almost certainly look better than mine) to be published, at
which
point I'll link to them instead. I also expect that future Issaries
publications will show us more runes, which will probably provoke me
into
building more fonts.

The fonts are windows TrueType fonts created with the excellent Font
Creator Program available from High-Logic.

If you'd like to be kept informed about revisions to these fonts and
new ones
being published, or you'd like to point out flaws in what's already
here please
mail me.

Hero Bands

Hero bands are groups of people active in the Hero Wars. They can be
used as
allies, as enemies or even as the basis for a campign.

Tostades Fort is home to a group of Lunar
ex-Army
types. They've come to Sartar to start a new life for themselves on the
edge of
the Empire. Is it their fault that they don't really know how to get on
with the
local Orlanthi clans? Or that their Fort is slap in the middle of what
the
clansmen claim is their hunting grounds?

Posted 24-Feb-2002

Players Briefings

One of the big problems in attracting new people to Glorantha is
that
there's just too much of it. The Glorantha supplement is great, and it
is
written in approachable manner, but still aims to cover twenty odd
distinct
cultures and their gods in only 256 pages. It's a good thing for the
narrator,
but it's too big and too diverse to give someone who doesn't know
anything
about Glorantha, but is looking for a game.

Player Briefings are aimed to fill this gap in the market.

The idea is to have something that you can hand out to potential
players
which can be quickly read, giving them a feel for the sort of game you
want to
run. If the briefing interests them they can be given the Glorantha
book or the
appropriate players book, but don't overpower them until they've shown
some
interest.

Players Briefings are written with the assumption that campaigns are
to be
no more than Moderately Open (rooted in a particular culture if not
entirely
driven by one culture).

The Briefings

Other briefings will be written as I get my head around the cultures
involved. If you have suggestions or spot faults in what's here then
please mail
me.

If anyone else would like to contribute Player Briefings then mail me. I'd be happy
to post
other people's work on this site, or link to your own sites if you'd
prefer.

Cults & Keywords

Characters in Hero Wars are defined by Keywords, a broad sweeping
term that
covers a shed load of implications. Warrior for example implies
that a
character knows how to use a sword, fight from horseback and stay awake
on
sentry duty. As I come up with new keywords for my game I'll be posting
them
here. Other new keywords can be found on the official Hero Wars web site - they might
post
something which disagrees with mine, in which case read through both
and decide
which best fits your vision of the character.

The three types of Keywords are Culture (The environment in which
the
character grew up), Occupation (What the character does) and Magic (The
character's
connection with the gods, spirits and forces which dominate Gloranthan
life).

Magic Keywords

The
Cult of
Molanni. Molanni is the niece of
Orlanth, the Storm god. She had a child by Yelm, the Sun Emperor, and
this child
became Daga, the god of Drought. Orlanth's worshippers condemn Molanni
as a
whore, but her devotees tell the story a little differently.